


Rediscovery

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Body Image, Carlos fawns over Cecil, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 05:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6458527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since Cecil has looked in a mirror. Carlos reflects for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rediscovery

**Author's Note:**

> Though “Rediscovery” might not be a good title for this, because I’m not sure how much Cecil would’ve known to begin with. He hasn’t looked in the mirror for a long time. Carlos really loves his boyfriend, though.
> 
> Another one done for a prompt on tumblr, this one: "an abandoned or empty place"
> 
> This has discussions of body image.

Cecil had not looked at himself for a long time.

The mirrors stayed covered. Once, a certain scientist had almost twitched the cloth in the bathroom aside out of habit. Somehow, Cecil had called from the other room, “Honey? Please be careful!”

Carlos got used to shaving with the selfie-angle of his phone’s camera. When they moved in together, he went first, to affix the heavy black cloths that would allow Cecil to brush his teeth without undue suffering.

They shared pictures often, anyway. It was just that Cecil didn’t look at his own, even to spend time obsessing over the angle of the shot. Carlos would see his good side, anyway. The camera’s automatic filter blocking out one half of the screen with red text that red “FORBIDDEN” or “INSUFFICIENT” would make sure of that, whether anyone wanted it or not.

So it came as a shock one day, when they were lying in bed, that Carlos put down his phone and looked at Cecil. He waited for the other man to notice, doing nothing to prompt him otherwise. He smiled when their gazes met, and said, “Hey, babe. You have really pretty eyes. Did you know that?”

“No!” Cecil answered, shocked into immediate honesty. “I mean, um, I didn’t know that. Or I’m not sure. Thank you?”

“‘No,’ as in you didn’t know, or ‘no,’ as in you disagree?”

“Um. No comment.”

“So you mean… ‘both.’ Right?”

Cecil forced himself onto his elbow and rested his face in his hand. The elevation gave him some illusion of control, but there wasn’t much he could do against Carlos’ frank, curious expression. Those dark eyes, bright with thought that outshone reflected light - now, those were beautiful, and there he was, reflected in them.

He could hardly picture himself at all, much less as the object of desire. To be the object of desire for Carlos? In theory, he’d known that he was. In practice, his own heart was about to crack his ribs. He said, “I meant, no comment. As in, I couldn’t think of anything to say to that immediately.”

“Oh. Fair enough. Do you want a minute to think about it?”

“No. Well. No, not really. What made you say it?”

“I like how your eyes look.”

“Oh.” He fell silent, and also back down onto his pillow, to lie on his back. Carlos pushed himself up, in turn, and leaned over Cecil. Soft waves of hair framed the scientist's face, and Cecil reached up without thinking, to run his fingers through it.

“Mm,” Carlos murmured, still smiling. He expanded upon the point, “It’s not the way you look at me. Although that’s… nice. No, just your eyes. Those are nice on their own. I mean, really…”

He moved closer, and carefully slid his fingertips just under Cecil’s shirt. Beneath the other man’s skin, muscles tensed, and Carlos paused. A moment later, Cecil relaxed, and Carlos moved his hand up to his boyfriend’s waist. There was a scar there. A horizontal line, thick and smooth. It was in the wrong place for an old bloodstone sacrifice. An overeager cat’s spine ridge could have done it. It could also have been something at once more sinister and less deliberate. Carlos did not ask.

He kept going, onto Cecil’s chest. His hand appeared as a lump under dark fabric, his fingers as shifting tendrils. There were other scars; some he touched and some he did not, but he lingered over each kind of tissue. He did not plot a particular course over the radio host’s skin.

Cecil imagined one, though, marked by warm trails through the blood inside of him. He was breathing, he had to be breathing, but the tremors in his lungs washed out the sensation. It wasn’t actually that Carlos had never touched him before, but it was _like_ he had never touched him before. It was always like that, somehow.

The scientist’s observation was keen, surely a feature of his profession, but Cecil did not feel like an experiment under that gaze. Under that gaze, he felt human. He was worth looking at.

Then Carlos’ hand was over his heart, and his heart beat against that hand. Under that touch, he felt habitable. He belonged in his own skin.

Carlos pushed Cecil’s shirt up just over his stomach, and kissed him softly above the navel. “You look good. All of you. Not just your eyes, but your eyes are really pretty.”

“Carlos…”

The scientist pushed himself up again, holding himself over Cecil without resting any weight on him. He brought his face inches away, close enough that his hair now brushed over Cecil’s cheeks. “Yes, Ceec?”

“You’re… sure about that?”

“That you look good? Yes. It’s a scientific fact. You have a very pleasing arrangement of features.”

“But I thought beauty was subjective!”

Carlos considered this, then said firmly, “Well, someone could subjectively disagree. They would be, objectively, wrong.”

Cecil stared up at his own, objectively beautiful boyfriend, and considered what he’d heard. Then, he laughed, and pressed a hand to Carlos’ cheek. “You’re the scientist. I’ll trust you on that.”

“Good,” Carlos replied. He dropped carefully onto his elbow, and kissed Cecil.

The radio host lifted a hand to the center of his boyfriend’s back, and an appreciative murmur slipped from the back of his throat. If this was what it meant to be beautiful, then maybe he was. He didn’t need to see it, if there was such strong scientific evidence.


End file.
